With the Germans in Spain.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 231, 1 December 1916, Page 5 (Supplement)

With the Germans in Spain.

ban Sebastian. While it is difficult for anyone who has seen anything of the horrors of the German invasion of Belgium and France to comprehend the neutral frame of mind, it lias to be remembered in visiting and contrasting Spain, where there is no sign of conflict, thai her people, are at peace. A few of the more far-seeing Spanisn leaders do uot quite like the situation. There is a good deal of jealousy of little Portugal, who has not been afrai'l to throw down her glove to the Kaiser. But on the whole Spain in general, and industrial Spain in particular, appears to he glad to be out of the maelstrom. In the course of visits extending over 30 years, I have never known such prosperity in Spain as at present. Witii the exception of a few old women who haunt the doors of catheurals, and r. single gipsy, who, by the way, asked alms in very fair German —imagining, I regret to say, that our party was from the Fatherland—we were not assailed by a single beggar anywhere. Good fortune seems to smile everywhere alike, in town and country. San Sebastian and other watering-places are having seasons such as they have never known before. In more than one of the excellent motorists' hotels erected during the past few yejirs we found it difficult to obtain sleeping quarters. A GLIMPSE OF THE KING. On setting out on a visit to the iron districts, we made the journey by the wonderful coast road via Zarauz, Bilbao, and Santander, which is certainly the most majestic, if dangerous, cliff road I have travelled in a somewhat extensive experience. The Bay of Naples, the road from Larne to Portrush, or the Grande Corniche cannot compare with it. The only darwbacks are the dust and nerve-racking corners, round which tear high-powered cars, with open exhausts, at a speed that I rewinds one of the Continental road I races of a decade back. There is a noise like that of a Zeppelin or a traction engine. Our modest 20-h.p. car is passed as if standing still, and then dust that completely obscures the view of sea and sky. "The King!" cries our chauffeur. His amiable Majesty is en route. Youth will be served. Farther on wa find a powerful royal car —not, fortunately, Alfonso's —in a ditch, with the two front wheels off. A day or two afterwards the Spanish papers record yet another .and serious accident to certain members of the royal entourage. In numberless ways it is a strange sensation to be living in surroundings not unlike those of the Riviera years ago in peace time. The white wings of the racing yachts are in the bay, golfing and lawn tennis parties are setting out for the days' sport, immaculately dressed young Spaniards, with Bondstreet and Savile-row written all over their clothes, are escorting senoritas dressed from the Rue <fe la. Paix. The whole thing, aaginst the background (f war, is like a dream of something long past. The road continues, one long film < f beautiful pictures, fthougli it passes through the iron districts leading to Bilbao and beyond. There" is nothing in the nature of a Black Country, or manufacturing Lancashire, or chemical Cheshire. Now an dthen one is on the Riviera, in a few moments in the sad mountains of Donegal. The hot southern sun blazes down on little inland coves of the Atlantic, in which ar« ensconced tiny watering-places, but there are no wounded, as in France cr at home. Villas embowered in walnut and chestnut trees, with gardens gay with red and white roses, and the universal jasmine and pink oleander, have carefully closed persiennes to keep out the mid-day heat. As one approaches Bilbao the hills are red with the iron laden soil from beneath which is brought down by vertical railway and wireways the metal for the guns and the shells. The rivers and tlieir estuaries pour, amazingly red, into the green Atlantic. One > f our party remarked that if anyone painted this contrast of sea and river he would be regarded as a Futurist, *.t was pleasantly cool sauntering along, but when we stopped for luncheon at Bilbao, the centre of one of the richest mineral territoies in the world, we found tiiat the day was as hot as midsummer at home.

In the restaurant our next neighbour is a stout German lady, wliose performance on the toothpick would have done credit to a restaurant in the Ericdrichstrasse in Berlin. We English speakers receive the usual glares from the Germans who are sharing the excellent meal provided. Afterwards, a Spaniard to whom we have an introduction complains of the Allies' commercial black-list. We point out that war is war, and that the saving of Allied lives and the destruction of enemy trade are more important to us than commercial relations with neutrals. His reply is that the rule should be applied all round, and especially to certain iron mines which nre e onjointly owned by Germans and English, and he mentions Krupp and an English firm by name. He admits that the district is largely Germanophile, and he behoves that considerable iron is going into Germany by Norway. This statement was afterwards denied, although not absolutely, bv an English authority whom we consulted. A TOUR AMONG THE PEASANTS. After sauntering through an incredibly beautiful country, with delicious jrlimiise-i of the Atlantic, pacing rivers in which the trout weiv rising temptingly and one in which there wa< excellent common fulling, wo slept .it Ovierlo. Nt n palatial hotel as unlike the Spain of twenty years ago as could be imagined. At the local frarng'* there was an assemblage of motor-cars

PEACE. A JOURNEY WEST. LIFE AT SAN SEBASTIAN.

Bl LOUD NOIiTHCLIFFE. i.

of the first rank, ana not one of them, .ive are glad to say, ■was German, but Rolls-Royce, Renault, Delaunay-Bel-vil.e, a Daimler, and, of course, the llispano-Suiza. There is an old Oviedo and a new, which is bsing built as rapidly and as noisily as New York, and as uglily as new Buenos Aires. Wakened in the morning by the sound of blasting in the neighbouring hills, a sound that is never out of one's ears in industrialised Spain, we crawled up the zig-zags of the great Cordilleras Cantabricas, jmd suddenly descended from the dense, wet clouds into what was exactly like Egypt. Red and ochre hills, a great blazing, yellow plain, dried-up-looking towns on the hillside, pigeon cotes exactly like those in Egyptian villages, and water raised by shadoofs. The wlieat has been gathered, and in some places is being trodden out, as in Biblical times. In all places it is winnowed in the wind, in ancient fashion. Out on the plain the only birds are hawks and quail-like partridges, with also our red-legs. We stopped the car outside an adobe hut of Moorish design, thick-walled and very cool within. The bright-eyed, dark, dry-skinned peasant who comes out to tell us the way invites us to taste some of the wine grapes which, together with some quinces, he 15. growing in his little casus. He is «extr<emfely .intelligent;, declines any payment, as is usual :n rural Spain, but .accepts a cigar and a few picture papers—for he cannot read and asks us about the war. It has had the effect of raising the price <f bread. The land as far as we can see. he tells us, belongs to a great nobleman and is worked l on a feudal system. Owing to the emigration to South America labour is scarce, and he and his, work doubly hard in consequence. It would be good land, lie savs, if the rain were attracted by the'planting of mere trees. The war, he fears, wilf be long. His good manners, which previous experience has taught me to find everywhere and among all classes in Spain, forbid his expressing an opinion as to the result. Later on that day a similar inquiry as to our route from an old labourer brought the question: Were we French? "No," we replied, "English." He put out his hand and shook ours warmly, saying that he had been .1 the service of an English family n Buenos Aires. And the war? How long will it last? Long, he feared. "The Alcmans are strong." There is no country in which I have been /where one is asked so frequently: How long will the war last? The war seems to be some great distant monster which, despite their interest in their own everyday life, is ever, if distantly, present. The dust between Albert and Arras, in the earlier days of the battle of the Soninie, when thousands of troups, transport wagons, and mules were stirring it, seemed to be, to use an Americanism, the "extension of the limit. 1 Egyptian dust is perpetual and insinuating, and Indian dust is like khaki flour. But Spanish dust, in August, when a Norther is blowing, amounts to something like a perpetual fog. A shut car is of no avail; goggles worn within it are useless. A passing mule can raise a cloud of it, and it was consoling to think, whatever may be the difficulties in front of our soldiers 111 that part of the map in which Sir Douglas Haig and General Foch are operating, a war in tliisj part of the world woudl be worse, a veritable agony of thirst. Yet, little more than a hundred years ago, the great Duke's soldiers drove Soult's forces across waterless plains similar to these, at a time when there were none of the comforts of mechanical transport. The contrast between thte peace and gaiety of small Spanish towns at night and our thoughts of France at til's time is trying. Yet no one .who has I been in a neutral country would wish to live in its atmosphere rather tlnn ' in that fo England or of her Allies, j These Spanish towns are alive with children, who, having, like all Spaniards, enjoyed their siesta, appear to go to bed aibout the time people are pouring out of the theatres in London. Almost evfry small centre has an excellent band, whose only fault is the monotony of its mournful, modern Spanish music, which seems to be almost always written in the minor. It is that of a people resigned to their lost position as conquistadore. Often, ft is pleaant to note, we cams across places in which there Ave re not only 110 Germans but no knowledge f 1 Germans. In some districts where there were Germans the people weiv perfect- I ly frank in their dislike for them. Tin j Spaniards are extremely good mimics j and can imitate German ways in a ! most amusing manner. IN* SAN* SEBASTIAN*. I Inquiries and researches in a good ! many quarters, every one of .which ie- j vealed the same steady German pur- ! pose, brought us eventually b?;k to j San Sebastian, whicii many of its' ad- I mirers claim, perhaps with reason, to | the most beautiful seaside resort i'. | the world. San Sebastian today is : humming with life and visitors. On j thi.' way into town we met a small Ennlisli jockey, heavily swathed, toiling at least four miles an hour in the afternoon sun. to reduce his weight for the racing, which takes place almost daily. Th? local bull-ring wa.s packed, and ii i attempt to get a seat for a pelot i match was in vain. Although the Spaniards are still the 1 proud peop'e they have always been, there is that curious mixture of democracy that make* San Sebastian a combination of Mont. 1 Carlo and Margate. The King and his yacht are here. Most ef the Embassies have moved here from Madrid. All Spain that- counts fills the .

beautiful villas on the hills and the densely packed hotels. In tile morning the perfect sands swarm with children.

Along the promenade that leads 10 Mi ramar, outside which lounge :is Majesty's guards in picturesque red Biscayan caps, there is an endless precession of tramway-cars and motors, mingled with slowly moving, yoked oxen, and the perpetual donkey of tlio peasants, as often as not ridden pillion. The casino i-, of course, the main attraction of this very rapidly growing town. 111 the gannng rooms, as at Monte Carlo, are the same shabby old ladies, with solemn faces, deliberately placing their five pesetas, with the other and younger ladies, who throw their money away as ifipidiy as they get it. Here and there is an Englishi man who looks thoroughly ashamed ,it being caught gambling in war-time, with the customary wizened old men, studiously working out their systems. There are Germans here, as everywhere, of course, but they chiefly have their headquarters at their own cafe in the town. A German in Spain \s not, as a rule, on pleasure bent. SPANISH CHILDREN. ir"*^ A pleasing and quite harmless feature of the casino at San Sebastian \s the organised gathering of hundreds i! children 011 the great terrace outside and in the rooms ont devoted to gambling. The absence of black in the women's and childrens' is .a striking contrast to one who has just come from France, and, were it nal for an occasional mantilla, there would be nothing but the vivid greens, yeilows, and blues that sound so bizarre, but are not out of place in Spain, where the national colours of red and yellow fit the landscape as properly as do the green, white, and red of sun-lit Italy. The Spaniards make much of their children. Sometimes one feels that the small people are a little out of place at tho hotel dinner hour, wliica is usually at 8.30 or 9 o'clock. As a rule the children are beautifully dressed, well cared for, most attractive, and altogether 'sans gene.' When we asked a Spanish friend why that vivacious ,and quick-witted l creature tho 'chico' (the Spanish boy) develops .<o quickly into something like apathetic languor, he replied it was "the education." Certainly the contrast between the early manhood of Spain and tho alertness of the boys is very remarkable.

San Sebastian is, of course, itself solemnly and particulaily interesting to English people, who have a pilgrimage of their own near by. And so, leaving the casino, with its myriads of little ones, who were being entertained by the sending up of grotesque fire balloons, in the shape of all manner of animals and black men, and escaping from the noise of the two rival bands, we said good-bye to neutral Spain, by visiting the scene of the famous and gloriously victorious storming of th? citadel in August 1813, when our soldiers showed exactly the same qualities they are displaying on the Somme today. They crossed the river under a terrible fire, which filled it with English blood. They performed what seemed the impossible, and what was almost as remarkable as Wolfe's attack on Quebec, by taking the rocky h II by assault.

At the top are a few English graves, whioh seem somewhat more neglected than they should be. From this lofty scene of the great struggle they look straight out towards the Bay of Biscay to England . The most legible .s as follows: —

Sacred to the memory of Lieuten-ant-Colonel Sir Richards Fletcher. Bart.; Captain C. Rhodes, Captain G. Collyer, Lieutenant H. MacheTT, orpsC of Royal Engineers, who fell at the siege of San Sebastian. August 31, 1813.